According to the borough president's office, Queens is the nation's most multi-ethnic county, where over 100 languages are spoken. The 7 train, which runs through it, is commonly referred to as the International Express, although it stops every few minutes. Even the site of the Queens Museum of Art, in Flushing Meadow Park, was home to not one, but two, World's Fairs. The colossal Unisphere, centerpiece of the 1964 fair, still stands nearby.

Currently on view at the museum, which hosts the highly anticipated Queens International every two years, is a show designed to cross borders. Tarjama/Translation features artists from the Middle East, Central Asia and its diasporas through the different ways in which artists engage with people, objects, images, and ideas traveling across geographic spaces, media forms, histories, and personal contexts.

Left to right: Photographs by Yelena Vorobyeva and Viktor Vorobyev, from Kasakhstan, from the Blue Period series. Still from Predator, a video by Mitra Tabrizian. Still from The City of Panther Fashion, a video by Gulsun Karamustafa

Curator Leeza Ahmady who was born in Afghanistan and arrived in New York in 1987 as a teenager, has brought together art in a variety of media by over 25 international artists. "The exhibition foregrounds how contemporary artists negotiate the continued dislocating forces of globalization," she says, "and how they track newer dilemmas engendered by their migrations." The title, Translations, refers to "artists engaged in various acts of translation: reading between the lines, probing the obvious, and burrowing through the camouflage of appearances to contemplate universal relevance."

In addition, the museum is currently providing a working studio for Dorothea Rockburne, who is creating a mural commissioned for the U.S. Embassy in Jamaica. For the next two months, visitors can observe the artist and her team of assistants as the work progresses. After the mural is shipped away, the wall on which it hangs will be demolished as part of the museum's upcoming expansion program. Read more.

Tarjama/Translation continues through September 27 at Queens Museum of Art, with a host of public programs ranging from calligraphy and ethnic dancing to films from Central Asia. Please visit the website for information and directions.